1840.] Memoir of Sylhet^ Kachar^ ^ adjacent districts, 839 



first part admits of some explanations, calculated to remove apparent 

 inconsistencies, and to render the story up to the passage of the 

 bridge sufficiently credible. The points which demand elucidation 

 are, the locality of the Bangmuttee and its extraordinary size ; the 

 stone bridge of twenty- two arches; and the name of the river over 

 which it was thrown. In the narrative three hill tribes are mentioned, 

 the Koonch, the Mikah, and the Nadera ; the Koonch it has been sup- 

 posed are the people of Kooch Bahar, but however this may be, 

 there is no difficulty about the Mikah, that being the name by which 

 the Kasias at this day are known among the Kacharis ; and Mikedeetak 

 being the title of an officer who had charge of the frontier with 

 that people, and such of them as occasionally took up their residence 

 within the Kachar jurisdiction ; and as it is expressly stated that 

 the Mahomedan army crossed the mountains^ before they reached the 

 bridge, and before the Raja submitted, I conclude, that they entered 

 Lower Assam, not by Goalpara, but by the Kasia or Kachar mountains. 

 The river, three times as wide as the Ganges, could not have been 

 the Brahmaputra, both because Mahomedan writers shew themselves 

 acquainted with that river, and because no one who had seen the 

 rivers about Dacca, could ever fancy the Brahmaputra above the 

 Luckia to be even wider than the Ganges; but to reach the Kasia 

 Hills, they must have marched along the edge of the inundation 

 in the Bhatta country, most likely before the waters had much abated, 

 and they mistook that for a river. 



No river called Bangmuttee (burster of earth) is now known in the 

 north-east parts of Bengal, but there is a place called Bangha, which 

 derives its name, without question, from its position at the fork of 

 the Soorma and Kusiara rivers, where the latter bursts from the 

 former and rushes towards the Bhatta country. It should here too be 

 remarked, that Bhangh (^t^) means to walk through water or mud, as 

 well as to burst or break, and the expression therefore is applicable 

 to the inundation. As the guide was called Ali Mikah, I conclude that 

 he was a Kasia, and led the army over his native mountains to some point 

 on the Burrampootah, where a temporary bridge, composed of timber, 

 supported on pieces of rough stone, might be erected, and where the 

 breadth would not be so great, but that in the dry season twenty- 

 two arches might suffice for the passage over the actual stream. 



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